Regrets
by Youkaiko
Summary: Ken reflects on his status as a fanfiction writer, and the rest of his life.
1. Regrets

Regrets  
  
by Youkaiko  
---------  
  
I'm tired...  
  
Tired of writing yaoi.  
  
I became an author at a fanfiction site, and tried my hand at writing yaoi fanfiction. I had moderate success. In comparison to my real job, it doesn't seem like much. But I had fun with it.  
  
Had.  
  
Now I read the other authors work and feel as if they cannot write. But they are merely children, trying to flex their creative muscle. I understand, somewhat.  
  
I've stopped writing yaoi completely. I'm tired of writing about it. I confess, I want to live as the young boys I write about, such passion for life and love and happiness. Rather, I wish that things worked out differently. Here I am, almost thirty years old and already having a slight mid-life crisis.  
  
My wife doesn't know what I write. I'm glad. She would be alarmed. Then again, she may slap me. Miyako has an uneven temperament. She's been a wonderful spouse, though, and an equally wonderful mother. I really don't know why I married her. Sometimes I think it was a mistake. Another mistake in my otherwise fruitful life.  
  
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to come home and slide into someone else's arms. Miyako doesn't do that very much, unless I look unhealthy. Sometimes I just ignore her. Our love life is like that... we do it every so often and don't care much for it anymore.  
  
I write about it, instead. Except I write about young anime boys who prefer to copulate amongst themselves. Disgusting, yes, but there were times I wanted to do such a thing.  
  
Perhaps this is why I am tired, of other things as well. I love my job. I love my children. I don't love my wife as much as I thought. If only I could start over again. But that is why I write, to try to start over again. Their characters... my characters... are allowed to be with the one person they love. Yet I will not let myself do the same.  
  
Everyone has halves of themself. It's the untolerable voice in my head telling me what I should have done in my youth. Because there he was, a wonderful young man, loving and caring. On his arm he carried the girl of the month. That was what I could not stand, that collection of loose girls he dated. So toward the end of college, I went out with Miyako. She had become a good friend. I know she wanted more, and so did I. At least, that is what I thought I wanted. I wanted more, but with another person.  
  
Perhaps all this time all I wanted was Daisuke. But I can't have him.  
  
It's idiotic of me to go on like the teenagers I read about, becoming angsty and fickle. Part of me says that I am not fickle, I am merely unhappy. Should I ask for a divorce? No, that is stupid idea. I won't tolerate infidelity, even from myself. Yet my own thoughts are impure. I am guilty of being very unhappy in my marrage. What more is there for me to do? I'm too old to be chasing former crushes.  
  
  
"Anyway, I thought about the things I settled for or never tried..."  
  
I must have left the CD player on in the bedroom.  
  
"so I don't blame you if you never come to see me here again..."  
  
Regrets...  
  
"regrets..."  
  
  
  
  
Fin  
  
  
Author's note: I wrote this as a sort of "What if Ken were a ff.net writer?" kind of thing. It was also out of frustration, because at the time hardly anyone read Jailbait. That is still the case, but now I think that the point of Jailbait was completely missed. (Oh well.) However, when Chibi Tuxie narrated, the story began to write itself, as most of my others do. Broom Lady just scoffed, but then put the CD player on Ben Folds Five's "Regrets". 


	2. Ken Ichijouji Part 2

Ken Ichijouji Part 2  
  
by Youkaiko  
-----------  
  
They let me go.  
  
I tried my best, for such a long time, to work hard and provide money for the family. That is the function of the salaryman. Yet, the inside, the Ken, has his own feelings and expresses that through yaoi fanfiction. Such is the way of the salaryman, being two people at once.  
  
Boss whispered to me. He said that there were boxes at the end of the hall. Miyako yelled at me. She screamed about how I wasn't the man she married. They built up inside of me an invisible anger.  
  
So I left. I've been gone for two days, because I couldn't take it anymore. I stayed at a hotel in the company of another woman, a friend from work. We didn't sleep with each other, we simply sat around and talked about our individual fandoms.  
  
There is a sence of complacency in my life. Perhaps being fired was not so bad. However, I can't stay in this hotel indefinately. I have to go home, to my children. To my wife. But do I want to? Do I want to go back to the world of the salaryman and be two people? Is it my fate to go back to the plight of the modern Japanese man? Perhaps it is Miyako who should work, and me that should stay home.  
  
Perhaps it is me that should become an undivided self. I would like to regain the vigor of the boys I have written about. But it isn't the sexual looseness, the unbridaled freedom that I want. That is an extreme that is unnecessary and possibly dangerous. After all, countless times in history we have teetered to opposite poles. Be Eastern, be Western, be straight, be gay, be masculine, be feminine, be strict, be unrestrained, be guilty, be innocent. It is impossible to be both or neither. It is only black or white.  
  
Where does that leave me?  
  
I have to challenge my destiny by being in the middle of the "ura" and the "omote" and accepting not the condition of my life, but the condition of myself.  
  
Until then, I have to get a part-time job.  
  
"...and I'm sorry, Mr Jones, it's time."  
  
  
  
  
  
Author's note: I thought I'd write another Ken being introverted chapter. However, I also wrote it based on my research of Japanese culture. Being a gaijin, though, I don't think I'll ever learn much. _ 


End file.
